


Three Wishes

by fleurlb



Category: The Middle (TV)
Genre: Gen, Genie - Freeform, Happy Ending, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: Darrin gets his happy ending, with a little help from a supernatural friend.





	Three Wishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



The old Henderson place on the edge of town was the kind of place that everyone knew was haunted. It was a sprawling mansion with Victorian turrets and all kinds of rumors. Sean always insisted that it had a swimming pool, and Axel said someone had been stabbed in the dumbwaiter, which Darrin had never understood exactly what a dumbwaiter was and suspected that Axel had found a sneaky way to call him dumb. 

Sue once told him that Weird Ashley said that a coven was taking ownership of the house because it was the site of ancient and powerful magic. And one rainy day, when he'd been waiting for Sue to get ready for a date, Brick had told him about Old Man Henderson, who was the last person to live in the house in the 1970s and whose grandfather had been an archeologist who specialized in artifacts of the Arabian Peninsula.

But now, Darrin stood on the front porch and pressed the bell, listening to the chimes echo through the house. He straightened his Mr Fix-It cap and stood up a bit taller. He didn't care about rumors or magic, but he did care about doing this job well. He was in line for a promotion and might even have the opportunity to meet Mr Fix-It himself. 

The door swung open to reveal a skeletal man in an expensive-looking suit.

“Are you the plumber?”

“I am more of a jack-of-several trades, including heating, air conditioner, and pipe repair,” said Darrin as he picked up his tool box and extended his hand.

The man looked at Darrin as though he was offering roadkill. “I'm the excecutor of the estate and I'm getting paid by the hour, but that's no reason for you to dilly-dally. The noise has been coming from the pipes in the annex, and we can't get the swimming pool to fill.”

“So there is a pool!” exclaimed Darrin, then he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. He stepped into the house, which had a dark, gloomy feel to it and followed the man through dusty hallways until they got to the annex, which was like a greenhouse with a swimming pool. Darrin managed to keep his thoughts to himself about the amazing space.

“The access to the pipes is through this door.” The lawyer gestured at a door that struck Darrin as smaller than some dog doors he'd seen, but he simply nodded and walked toward it. 

He managed to get through the door, although he had to fold himself in half and wriggle in while he clenched a small but powerful flashlight between his teeth. The door was the worst of it. Once he was through it, he found he could stand although the access between the pipes was narrow enough that he had to go through sideways and suck in his stomach. 

Darrin followed the lines of the pipes, snaking through the room until they reached the wall, he cut see a cut-off valve and the connection to what he guessed was the main water line into the house. He pulled the valve into the closed position, muscling the rusty lever into place. He could hear a high-pitched trilling noise, that put him in mind of a the combined sound of a whistling kettle and something zinging through copper. He stood still and closed his eyes and just listened to the sound, which he isolated as coming from the opposite side of the room. 

He walked over and shone his light on the pipe, which had a bit of sparkle to it, underneath all the dust. Darrin rubbed the dust off, revealing what seemed to be raised writing, although it was difficult to tell.

“Cool pipe. It's a shame I'm going to need to replace you,” he whispered, feeling only slightly foolish. He opened his toolbox and pulled out a wrench, but found that he couldn't get the wrench to fit on the pipe. It was a non-standard size that he'd never seen before. He dropped the wrench and popped the flashlight back between his teeth. 

Gently, he put his hands on the pipe and then started to twist. It took three twists, but the pipe came loose in his hands. The noise stopped immediately.

“Gotcha,” said Darrin with a grin.

A puff of grey smoke filled the room and an ancient voice said. “It remains to be seen exactly who has gotten whom.”

Darrin coughed and waved the smoke away, expecting to see the pinch-faced lawyer standing in front of him, even though the voice hadn't sounded remotely like the man. Or like any man Darrin had ever heard. He took the flashlight out of his mouth and scanned the room with it. In the corner, he saw a huge shape, that somehow was both substantial and wispy. The basic body looked vaguely like a circus strongman, but the head was lumpy and vaguely goat-like. Darrin took a step back and whacked his head on a pipe.

He rubbed the knot at the back of his head. “That was a nasty bump. I'm seeing things now. Should probably get checked out.”

“You're not seeing things,” said the shadowy shape. “You've freed me, after a long and dreary captivity. I've been entombed in that pipe for several centuries. Transported to this place and I'm ready to leave. But first, I must free myself from obligation to you. To this end, I will offer you three wishes.”

Darrin shook his head, remembering some of the scary things he learned in HVAC school about carbon monoxide. Who knew what had been in those pipes? “I'm getting out of here. I really need to get out of here.”

He moved as fast as he could and squeezed himself out the small door. Back in the sunlight of the pool room, he felt better and began to breath normally. He was feeling better and was wondering what he was going to tell the lawyer when he felt a breeze blow past him. He looked up to see a swirl of grey smoke materialize in front of the pool. It seemed to fill even more of the open space, but it remained featureless, except for the general outline of a goat-shaped head on a strongman body.

“Human, I can grant you three wishes. And I am bound to you until my debt is repaid.”

“I suppose a smart thing to do would be to wish for more wishes.”

“Then I will be with you for longer, and you might come to regret that decision. I also cannot make anyone fall in love with you and I will not bring anyone back from the dead. I suggest you think quickly but carefully.”

“I wish I could swim in a pool of chocolate pudding!” Darrin had no idea where that wish had come from, but before he realized what he had said, he was in the pool, sputtering, under what felt like a mountain of sticky mud. He flailed his arms and fought his way to the surface, gasping for breath. 

“I wish I'd never made that wish!” he gasped.

The next instant, he was back on the pool deck, his uniform crisp and clean, the pool empty in front of him. The only hint of his first wish was the vague taste of chocolate pudding in his mouth.

“One more wish. I suggest you put a tiny bit more thought into this one.”

Darrin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let his mind flick through his thoughts, feelings, and memories. He wasn't really surprised how many featured Sue. But even if he could wish for her to fall back in love with him, he found he wouldn't be able to do it. Sue had moved on and built a good life with Sean. 

“I wish that Sue Heck-Donahue is happy and gets what she wants most of all.” 

“You're positive that is how you want to use your final wish?”

Darrin nodded and then he saw the shape nod before it vanished. He rubbed the back of his head. “I am really going to have to get checked out.” 

He squeezed back into the small room, replaced the pipe with a modern PVC pipe, and turned the water back on. He went to the pool, which smelled vaguely of sugar, and turned the faucet on. He heard a rattle of pipes followed by a splutter, and then water rushed into the pool. He turned the faucet off and collected his tool box.

“Excuse me?” he called as he stepped into the dim hallway and followed it back to toward the front of the house. 

His phone rang in his pocket, and he took it out to check to see who it was. He saw he had a bunch of missed calls from Sue, who was currently calling him for what looked like the seven time today.

“Darrin! I've been calling you for the last half-hour. I'm sorry, is this a good time?” asked Sue. Or at least, Darrin thought that was the gist of what she was saying. Her words were garbled and the reception was terrible.

“Sue,” he shouted into the phone. “Hold on a sec. I've got to move to where the reception is better.”

He held the phone out in front of him and walked, checking the reception as he went. He had to walk all the way outside and out to the road before he got three bars of reception. 

“Sue! Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Okay???!!! Everything is amazing! I'm calling everyone I know to tell them the good news!”

“Good news?” echoed Darrin.

“Amazing news. I'm pregnant! With twins! I didn't even know I was pregnant until just now really. Just a little while ago. We thought I was having a bit of a health scare, not to go all TMI on you, but I'm in the hospital for tests and they just did an ultrasound and found TWO heart beats. I'm about 14 weeks along, they think. It's a little hard to tell. We've been trying for so long. I had honestly given up hope on ever being truly happy.”

Darrin felt his heart stutter in his chest. He cleared his throat. “Sue, that's great news. I'm so happy for you. You sound good. Really happy.”

“Over-the-moon happy. The only person happier is my mom. Even though she has grandchildren already, she says it's different when your daughter is having the baby. She also says that she's got two more chances for a granddaughter. If even one of these kids is a girl, my mom is going to back a dump truck of pink dresses up to our house. That reminds me. I'll be having a baby shower! You'll have to come to the baby shower.”

“Yeah, uh, that sounds great. Listen, I'm at work now, so I better get back to it.” Darrin rubbed his hand over his face and along the back of his neck, then up into his hair. He could feel the knot from where he knocked into the pipe and his head was starting to throb.

“Okay! Maybe we'll see you soon. Come by. Seriously. Anytime.”

Darrin was about to reply when he realized she'd cut the connection. As he put the phone back into his pocket, he remembered a time when it was impossible to get off the phone with Sue, how she'd always insist that he hang up first. 

The throbbing in his head was suddenly turned up to 11, and his knees felt distinctly spaghetti-like. He slid to the ground like a 20-pound bag of potatoes sliding off a poorly stacked pyramid in the Frugal Hoosier.

Darrin didn't know how long he was out, but when he regained consciousness, he was staring into the deep blue eyes of an angel. At least it was a woman wearing an angel costume, on her way to an early costume party. He had the strange and giddy sensation that this was all part of the wish, that Sue wouldn't be happy unless everyone she cared about was also happy.

“Are you okay, Darrin?” asked the angel.

“How did you know my name?”

“The name tag on your shirt. Although you totally look like a Darrin. I might've guessed Fred first, but I would've gotten to Darrin eventually. Definitely in the first three guesses.” The girl rocked back on her heels and grinned at him like she'd known him her whole life. 

“And your name is.....let me guess.....Sue?”

“Close! It's Sue-Ann. It was supposed to be Susanne, but someone _somehow_ managed to mess up the birth certificate. My dad claims it was my mom, and my mom claims not to remember anything and why would she when she had to push a watermelon out of a keyhole.” She rolled her eyes but her tone was good-natured. “You never answered my question. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” replied Darrin. “I think I'm going to be just fine. Would you um.... maybe like to get coffee?”

“I would love to!” The woman jumped to her feet and reached out a hand to help Darrin up. He grasped her hand and felt a kind of magic zing through him, and he knew that his wish was indeed granted.


End file.
